Football Is Taking Over... MC Week 5

This week just flew past me. I think my house is in MORE disarray from me attempting to clean. Granted, it was actual CLEANING instead of my normal organizing. So, everything is out of the bathroom while I bleach it down, and my stove is completely dismantled while I'm scrubbing the year's worth of caked on burnt...whatever... that's been piling up.

On top of all this chaos, my husband's aunt is coming for a visit in a few days, and so my mother-in-law is harping on how I need to organize my house for the aunt's arrival - even though she'll be staying with the in-laws, and will probably never even set foot in our house.

Oh, and football has taken over my life.

Preach it, Squirrelly, preach it!
Hallelujah!

In the past, I was kind of whatever about American Football. I'd watch it with my dad, but after he passed away my sister and I generally only cared about the Giants games. It was my dad's favorite team, and we sort of inherited it as our favorite as well. Anyway, this is how involved I was in football for most of my life.

Then last year Hubby and I found out our friend Quarthix really enjoyed football - and his fiance didn't hate watching it - and so he would come over every Sunday. This got me more involved in the game, as I was hosting Sunday Football now. It also brought me and my sister closer as we would chat about the Giants games every week.

Still, except for a good Thursday night match-up, Sunday would be the only "Football Day". Well, this year Hubby decided to try his hand at running a fantasy football league, and convinced me to join. We're a baby 8-man league with Quarthix, his fiance, MadDog24, his wife 2-feathers-and-a-stone, and two former co-workers we watch the Sunday night games with.

For those who don't know what fantasy football is, you play the part of a team coach/owner. Just before the regular season starts - generally after watching summer training camps and pre-season games - the players hold a draft to pick real football players they'd like on their fantasy team. Once the teams are filled, the players can then choose who to have "play" and who to put on their "bench". Each week your team's line-up - active players - must be set before the games start. Then your team earns - or sometimes loses - points based on how - or poorly - the players you selected do in their games. At the end of the week, the person with more points beats the other player they are pitted against. Towards the end of the regular season, the leagues have their own version of a playoff to determine whose team was the best out of all the league's players.

Some leagues are just playing for bragging rights among friends, but others are "money leagues" in which you win money either weekly or at the end of the season. It gets pretty intense.

Anyway, the whole point of me going on and on about that, is now I'm super involved. I about more than just the Giants, because I have fantasy players on so many other teams. Every game is exciting because I'm competing against a friend, and we cheer or boo individual players now; not just teams. We also want to watch all of the games as we bite our nails to see who would be victorious.

This means that I'm not just hosting and doing other odd-jobs on Sundays; I'm actively watching all three games - four, if you count switching between the two 1pm games. I'm now giving up about three or four hours of my Thursday and Monday nights to football as well.

Not very good for cleaning or writing. Especially since we generally don't watch the night games at our place anymore. We don't have the channel for the Monday night ones, and so we go to Quarthix's place, we go to our neighbor's house for the Sunday night games since he tends to have a gathering anyway, and it's up in the air where we see the Thursday night games.

Oh, Football, how you make me so unproductive....

I had completely forgotten to watch my MasterClass webinars on Monday again because of this chaos. I've also missed out on so many of my 5pm writing hours as well. Football goes through January, and so I really need to figure out how to balance my life around it if I'm going to get any writing done again.

Alright, let's start off with a refresher of my assignments for this past week.

First up was the lesson on dialogue, which had me writing without any action or descriptions. Mine ended up about twice as long as the one that James Patterson claimed was "too long". Still, I'm kind of confident that the drama remained there, and that it moved the story along. You learned a lot about the characters and their interaction with each other in my finished product.

At least one "fellow student" read and commented about my dialogue, though. He/she felt it was boring and a bit repetitive, and in desperate need of action. I agree that it's rough to not have any action to break everything up, but the assignment specifically said not to include any. Also, I didn't notice any sort of repetition when I reread with the critique in mind. Even if there was any, it was supposed to be the woman harping on her husband and work as a way of nervously getting him back out the door before her lover is discovered.

I'm not entirely sure what made it boring, but it's just one person's posted opinion. Without others to gather an average feel for my piece, I don't really know if I should take the person's critique to heart. I would read virtually an entire book of nothing but dialogue, because I'm so focused on character development. Maybe there's people who are the opposite and prefer action and plot development. Maybe that's why three pages of just dialogue seems boring.

Geez, I don't know! Part of me feels I should take the critique to heart in order to improve, but since I still don't see what it is that I need to improve - I'm not noticing what the commentator saw - most of me feels I shouldn't stress about it.

Although, there was a lot of dialogue repetition in Please, Let Me Explain. It's what most of the editing was that I did over the spring. Difference there, though, is that I could actually SEE the repetitiveness, and so I could fix it.... Gaaah, this is annoying. I'm gonna let the comment drop for this assignment, but keep a more watchful eye for the future.

Moving on to the assignment for the Chapter Building lesson. For this webinar segment, we were supposed to choose one of the chapters from our outline, and then write said chapter from multiple points of view too see which is the most compelling one to use.

I didn't even attempt this one. Mostly because how can I write in the POV of characters I don't know yet? Last week I mentioned that I might try to just free-write to get to know the characters, but I just drew blanks. So, I ended up breaking out about three different character surveys and checklists in order to try to learn who my characters are. However, it's four days later, and I still haven't done enough playing around to know much more about either main character. I really just need to think of this project as my reworking of the Marvel canon X-Men into original characters for my X-Future reboot.

Once I figure out one key catalyst, all the other pieces should fall into place. I just need to figure out where that jumping point is for each of them.

I've decided that Pernilla is indeed Spanish, and that she never uses contractions due to her age and the fact that she had to learn English as a second language; well, actually, it was probably her third or fourth language. She most likely also still speaks in a more British-English than Americanized one. She won't have a British accent - it will either still be a Spanish one, or it would be American by now - but she would say things such as biscuit instead of cookie, or lavatory/toilet instead of asking for the public bathroom. Those sorts of things. Simply because she would have learned English when Mt. Olympus moved over England. When all of the Greek gods traveled further west to the United States, there would be no need for Pernilla to "relearn" English.

The only thing I have figured out for Pernilla's love interest is that I want him to be non-Caucasian. Possibly Native American or African American. I don't want him to be Latino since Pernilla's Spanish. Seems too convenient. I might make him Asian, but I'm picturing him with darker skin. Maybe middle-eastern then.... Still trying to sort that out.

The "last" assignment - since I forgot to watch the last webinar video scheduled for the week - asked me to write my third chapter as if it were a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. I was supposed to come up with a "wrong turn" that my character would go down, read both options to a friend, and see which she'd prefer. If the "wrong turn" trek was the more interesting of the two, could I recover from that?

Well, my main issue with this is that it works great if one were writing a mystery novel; which Patterson seems to exclusively do. However, the "modern fantasy" genre really doesn't have "time" for wrong turns. Rick Riordan's novels - which I'm basing my off of - usually take place in the span of a few days to MAYBE a few weeks. If they take a wrong turn at all, it's all over. They have to make sure that every lead is the right one; luckily, it turns out that way.

I can MAYBE see where my characters can hit a dead end, but certainly not in the first three chapters. Especially since Chapter 3 is when the two realize they care for each other and decide to part ways to prevent Artemis from killing them. The only other thing I can think of is for them to decide then to run away; roughly three chapters early. While it is possible to rush the story along by having them make this decision, but after serving Artemis for over three centuries, it just doesn't feel right that Pernilla would turn her back on the Hunt so easily.

Yes, she realizes that she cares deeply for the kid, but she still has only known him for a few days, maybe a few weeks. Her logic would dictate that it's far too soon for it to be love - she'd be wrong, but ignore that - and wouldn't believe it worth angering Artemis, and endangering someone she grew fond of, over something that might not last. No regrets. She can push the guy out of her mind and heart once he's gone. It's just a crush.

I may just be too stubborn to do this assignment, at least right now. Perhaps once I'm in the process of actually writing the manuscript I can cave and attempt the "two parallel universes" idea.

Well, normally, this would be the part where I give you fine folks a list of what my assignments are for this week, as well as my views on how I'll tackle them. However, I have yet to watch the videos this week. I may just take a break in order to concentrate on cleaning. Besides, my wedding anniversary is this Friday. I want to be able to just take the day.

So, yeah, I think I'm taking a vacation. I'll see if I get inspired in the process of taking the pressure off. I'll be sure to keep you posted on how I do.

MasterClass Week 4: I'm Getting My Butt Kicked

Woah. I'm a day late, and had a "Temporary Post" update! I haven't done one of those in over a year! Sorry about that, folks. I got caught up in things Tuesday night, and so I forgot to work on my blog post. And I think I have the season's first head cold coming on, because I just could not will myself out of bed at 5am yesterday morning. So, I had to bite the bullet, and accept that I wasn't going to have a blog post written in time for the noon update. Then, we had a surprise party for Ronoxym's birthday. Happy belated to Ron and ChibiSunnie, by the way. Anyway, so right after work yesterday we were off to said party. Had to crash as soon as we got home, because I was up and back at work first thing this morning. Such a crazy week so far; I have had no time to sit and breathe - or write, or clean....

The fact that I'm pretty much guaranteed to work Wednesday mornings now really screwed with my updating all month. I really, really need to figure out when I'm more likely to have free time. It's beginning to look like Thursdays might be the better day for me. It seems like I'm getting them off regularly; today being an exception since I actually offered to pick up a shift. I do seem to also get Mondays off relatively regularly. My weekly updates might switch to either of those days. So, stay tuned for that change, and I'm sorry for people who have been with me for years. I know it's been crazy with my switch from "post whenever" to "post whenever weekly" to "post every Sunday" to "Sunday is crazy so I'll post on Wednesdays periodically" to "Wednesday update day" and now I'm switching it up again.

Well, either way, before I do anything else, I want to do this so I don't forget again. Earlier this month I was surprised when Phfylburt randomly posted the following status:

Phfyl: To my lovingly amazing wife, Do you remember when you were pregnant and we didn't say/announce anything online until after the baby was born? Because I remember! And I am also super glad you aren't prego no mo! Love, Your Husband, Me!

So, a huge congratulations to Phfyl for both the new member to his family, and the unique and awesome way of announcing it. Sorry I completely forgot to announce that last week. Enjoy being a papa!

Alright, and now to my writing.

Again, before I forget, I want to start off by stating that I FINALLY remembered to post "You're in Trouble, Son!" on DeviantArt. So, if you've been patiently waiting all month for this chapter to go to DA, you're in luck. You can find it here: You're In Trouble, Son!

Sad to say, I don't really have much more than that to share. I've been really slacking on my daily writing hours. I always seem to have something come up at 5pm this past week, and I never remember to go back when I'm done and spend an hour writing. I usually have the rest of the night, too; I've just been lazy.

One of last week's assignments for "MasterClass: James Patterson Teaches Writing" was to come up with 20 characteristics, and then cross out 17 of them to see if the surviving 3 characteristics are still interesting enough to build a character off of.

I still have no real concept for either of my main characters for the Percy Jackson Universe fanfic I thought of for this class. So creating a list of characteristics for them wasn't happening. It was just a blank screen. So, I figured I'd ease my way into it by coming up with the 20-piece list for each of My Girls: Amara, Lia, Willow, and Trish.

I. Suck. At. This.

I just can't think in simple characteristics. I think in "life events" or "complex human paradoxes". For instance, Amara is a half-elf who hates the human half of her, is trying to find a magical way of converting herself into a full-elf, and yet she disguises herself as a human to avoid unwanted advances from people who like the exotic nature of elves. It's hard to break that down into simple characteristics. I managed, but it kept me over a half-hour, and I know Amara inside and out after building her character over the past decade.

You'd think that Lia, Willow, and Trish would be equally simple to come up with characteristics for since all three of them are just different aspects of my own personality. Nope. I maybe came up with five characteristics for each of them. Aside from "Demigod", "Huntress of Artemis", "Over 3 centuries old", "Virgin", and "Good fighter", I have nothing for Pernilla, and even less for her still unnamed love interest.

I eventually gave up on that exercise. I have to face the fact that I won't be able to write the way that Patterson does. There are some techniques that just won't work for me - and the alternative way that I figure out for myself will most likely never work for him. Especially since there is no grading in this webinar, I need to put the studious part behind me and remind myself that some assignments I just won't do; or at least do well. I'm so used to getting As in school and making sure my work is done, it's hard for me to turn that off; even after being out of school for almost 10yrs.

For those who are still curious as to what my list for Amara ended up as, here ya go:

1. Half-Elf
2. Horribly Scarred
3. Former Sex-Slave
4. Literally hunted by relatives
5. Hated
6. Shunned
7. Distrusts Humans
8. Distrusts Affection
9. Taciturn
10. Intimidating
11. Loves Singing (only in private)
12. Disguises as Human
13. Desires to become a full elf
14. Semi-Feral
15. Heartbroken
16. Lonely/Isolated
17. Dispassionate
18. Soft-Spot for Abuse Victims
19. Determined
20. Only helps those in need if she witnesses the injustice

Last week I already talked about the first assignment for the week: finding out what my writing distractions are. Socializing - which has become a bigger part of my life now that we watch football 3 nights a week - is a HUGE distraction; which is one of the main reasons I neglected my writing hours. The pain is still a distraction. Bug bites; not so much now. Instead, the cold of fall is finally kicking in. Thankfully, Hubby did some cleaning, and so I have blankets and my fingerless gloves for typing. Also, for my birthday - or a super early Christmas gift? - Spink got me a big, fluffy, super comfy Legend of Zelda housecoat.

Yes. It's a housecoat; not a bathrobe. Different design and different fabric used. Granted, it's not like the housecoats that you see 90yr old women wear - basically, a zip-down muumuu-like gown. It's closer to the Ebeneezer Scrooge long robe styling. Either way, it's cozy and keeps me warm as the fall chill sets in.

But, let's get back on topic, shall we?

The final assignment last week was to write five first lines. I mentioned last week that two out of the four printed examples were just five individual lines, and the other two examples were five-sentence opening paragraphs. After watching Patterson's critique of them, I determined that the assignment WAS supposed to be five individual lines. HOWEVER, it's not as possibly random as I had imagined last week. These are supposed to be five different possible opening lines for the story outlined the week before.

That being said, here are the five lines I came up with. Two of them I enjoy the imagery, but I'm not a fan of them giving away a huge end-of-book plot point. When I actually go to write this story, I may switch up the opening line even more; we'll see once I figure out my characters.

1. She had recently turned fifteen for the three-hundred-and-fortieth time.
2. She should have known he would be her doom when she saved him from the Lamia.
3. Of course the love of my life would be a man-hating, eternal maiden who swore herself to a Feminazi goddess.
4. Even if I knew I was going to die, I would not have changed a thing, except - of course - the ending.
5. Who would have thought that as an immortal I would die of old age?

If you didn't pick up on it, I also tried opening the story in three different POVs: Third Limited, Pernilla First Person, and Pernilla's Love Interest First Person.

I have to say, I'm not a fan of line #4 now that I look back at it. Blach...

The lines were actually kind of fun to write. Kept me a while to try to figure out how to open the story, but once I had a basic idea I was able to crank those five out over my 15-min work break.

Now, here I am, day 3 for this week, and I'm a bit stuck on this week's assignments.

The first one was simple enough. I knocked that baby out on Tuesday. The exercise is supposed to help us better work dialogue. Not to toot my own horn, but from my own personal feel for my writing, plus the critiques that I've received over the years, I'm actually pretty good with dialogue. It seems realistic, interesting, moves the story along - even if it's through character development - and really conveys the characters' feelings and personality.

In other words, this exercise was a cake walk.

Here's the actual assignment writing prompt:

Write dialogue (using no narration) between two characters using this prompt:
A man comes home from work early and his wife intercepts him in the living room. He doesn’t want to tell her that he’s just been fired; she doesn’t want him to know her lover is in the bedroom.

Just like with the first lines - and other previous lessons - there were examples from previous students printed in the workbook. Patterson then had a video of him critiquing the examples. He started off by stating how well done some of them were, and how a lot of the students commented on the ease of this assignment. He noted that if our outlines were like that prompt - a basic concept, but with the drama clearly built in - then it would be just as easy to tap back into that drama when we're writing that chapter. If our outlines were written like that prompt was, we'd have just as much fun writing that part of the story.

He then focused on the examples that were provided. Out of the four, most were only about 14 lines long or so. Then there was one that was about 30 lines. This made me nervous, since mine ended up being over 60 lines long; more than twice that of the longest example. Granted, the main reason mine was so long was because I actually stayed with the scene until the conflict was fairly resolved; both secrets were out. All the examples cut off after a few lines. One had the husband slide his hands inside his wife's robe; neither of them knew the other even had a secret. One ended with the wife trying to hide sounds her lover was making by pretending she's scared it's a burglar. The longest one ended with the husband trying to stop his wife from finding out his secret by pretending to be deathly ill; convincing her that they should go to the hospital. The final example just had the wife tell her husband that he looks sexy in his work suit, and that he should stay in it while they go out to dinner.

No resolution, and barely any conflict in any of the examples. Mine has a semi-resolution - the husband heads into the bedroom to kick some butt - and definite conflict as the couple gets into a screaming match at each other over workaholism, porn, neglect, infidelity, and loss of romance. So, even though my scene went close two quadruple the length of the other ones, I feel like it's justified and not boring.

I am still concerned, though, because Patterson didn't even bother reading the 30-line example in his critique video:

“This is the one that goes on and on. This one is just too fricken long. It stays at the races too long. There's so much dialogue that you lose the drama of the whole thing. I'm gonna skip this one.... And that's a gut thing. You just have to be aware of what's the scene and what makes it work the best. And they just talk too much.”

Ooof. I mean, it is a bit boring, and the whole "we should go to the hospital" thing so they can avoid their secrets being found out seems so over the top. I'm hoping that even though mine is "too fricken long", "stays at the races", and "they just talk too much", that it still keeps the drama, and that I'm still "aware of what's the scene and what makes it work the best".

I am really nervous about that.

The other two assignments are a bit trickier to begin with, so if I managed to screw up the dialogue one, I'm worried about how I'm going to do with the other two.

The assignment from the Chapter Building lesson is:

James recommends taking a story from your own life experience and writing it down. To get you started, use his technique for building a compelling scene by using your five senses. What do you see, hear, smell, taste and feel? Now change perspective to see whose version of the story is the most interesting. Is it still yours?
▶▶ Using your outline, choose a chapter to write from multiple perspectives, experimenting with both first person and third person limited.

I wouldn't even know what story to tell for the first part of that assignment, so I'll have to maybe ask my husband to help me with that one: "Honey, what story about my past do you enjoy hearing?" Go from there.

As for the second part, I sort of tried that tactic with the first lines thing. My issue is I'm not sure which chapter from my outline I want to work on, especially since I still don't know these characters. I don't know their point of view. Then again, perhaps this will help me with that. Playing around with the characters - maybe writing something that ISN'T on the outline; just them interacting - might allow me to get to know them. That's how it was with Willow. I had no clue at first, and now look at her. We'll see how well I do.

The final assignment for the week is from the Suspense Building lesson:

Think of your first three chapters as a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. Write down two different possibilities for your third chapter. Call a friend and have them choose which version they’re more interested in reading. How would this different turn for your character change the outcome of the plot itself? Would it be a correctable mistake, or would it change the story dramatically?

I mean, I'm not writing a mystery novel like Patterson typically does, but I could see what I can do with this. There is still that same issue that I can't even really start my story because I don't know the characters. I might have to skip this one until a little later in the webinar; next week, perhaps. We'll see how adventurous I get with my writing.

Technically, according to the suggested syllabus for the class, I had one more lesson this week, but I'm so used to there only being three a week that I didn't notice that I missed one until just now; when I went back to copy and paste the assignments for this week. Whoops. It's supposed to be about ending the book, and then next week is supposed to focus on editing, working with co-authors, and getting published. It makes sense that the "ending your book" lesson was supposed to be with all the other "this is how you write a book" lessons this week.

Guess I'm just gonna tag this on to the start of next week, and end up with five videos to watch.

Here's hoping I find time for everything!

MasterClass Week 3: Writers Block, Character Build, and First Lines

Wow, so, in the process of having to get up at 5am two Wednesdays in a row in order to get my blog written for the noon update, I completely blew past the fact that two weeks ago marked my 200th post! Go me!

I never realized what this blog would mean to me and how it would evolve when I first started it YEARS ago. It was going to be something where I simply would post "yeah, I was busy, I know you've been waiting for a while for my next chapter update. I'm such-and-such far along, so maybe by next week". Instead, these are insanely long posts all explaining my writing journey. Might be something fun to go back through and edit into a writing memoir once I'm famous.

Right now, though, I'm just so involved in what I'm doing that I just don't have the time to do any sort of "look through the years" recap like I did for the 100th post or for my year-in-review posts. Maybe I'll do that again at the end of December, but right now I'm just excited to keep telling you fine folks about my MasterClass program!

I was kind of disappointed in myself because I kept skipping out on my scheduled writing time last week. I would avoid writing - while still telling myself that I was being productive - by doing the "researching" portion of last week's assignments. Mostly I was going through Rick Riordan's works to see what myths of Artemis he established.

I also searched to see what country was most in power among the Western Civilization back in the 1600s. See, according to Riordan's world, the celestial portion of Mount Olympus - the portion that actually houses the Greek gods - shifts to be at the center of Western Civilization. So, it moved to Rome when the Romans came to power, and then shifted west again as Europe developed, ending up above NYC when the United Stated became a World Super Power. Since my female protagonist - the huntress of Artemis - was born about 1672, I wanted to know who was the center of civilization back then, so I would have a better idea of where Olympus would be stationed, and where Artemis would be most likely found. Granted, she could still hunt throughout the world, and the protagonist could be from Japan if I wanted. Still, I wanted Olympus to be "close to home" for her. I discovered that Spain was pretty big in the 1600s, but was on the decline around when she would be born. Later in the week I finally got some writing time with Spink, and she somehow came up with Switzerland becoming the new Super Power around 1670. So we spent nearly an hour going through Swedish names to find one that was around in that era. We're not entirely sure that it really was around - or popular - back then, but for the purposes of the class, it works. I'm also not sure I want her to be Swedish; I sort of already started picturing her as Spanish after my find. Maybe that's Lia's influence.

Anyway, the protagonist huntress of Artemis is now named Pernilla. YAY! A name! Still need to name her boyfriend, but I haven't even figured out what ethnicity I want him to be, and that might influence his name. Alternatively, he's 17 in my story, and so I can just check to see some of the most popular boy names in the United States in 1998. Name him off of that.

I also still need to figure out the gods that are each of their parents. Being a follower of Artemis, Pernilla would either be a demigod or some sort of mythical creature herself, such as a nymph. I like the idea of Pernilla being at least part human, and so demigod it is. I need to figure out if her parent is a major or minor god, and who it is. From there I could then figure out if her human parent was her mom or dad. I then have to figure out the same for the male protagonist. I don't think their godly parents are going to have much impact in the story, but it might bring something about their character, or impact some of the scenes throughout the tale. At the very least, their parentage influences the supernatural abilities they possess, which would influence their fighting and the journey.

To bring this back to the week's timeline, I was spending most of my daily writing hours researching this sort of stuff. Productive, but not what the hour should be used for, in my opinion. I needed to get back to writing prose. THAT was what the hour was supposed to be for. I kept postponing the second assignment - the one I SHOULD have been doing each daily writing hour - because I hadn't told Spink my idea yet. The last assignment from week one was to tell a brutally honest friend a story idea and see if they think it's worth writing. While I was pretty on board with the Huntress of Artemis tale, I didn't send the 5 - or, rather, 11 - sentence synopsis to see if she found it interesting. She just lives five minutes down the road! So I kept thinking "I'll meet up with her tomorrow and we can go over it."

Yet when "tomorrow" arrived there was always something keeping us from getting together. Finally, it was Friday and becoming "crunch time". So I asked her if I could meet up for some Writing Talk while her fiance was at work and Hubby was off playing in a MTG tournament. Sadly, even THEN I didn't manage to relay my story over. As soon as I mentioned that none of my original characters had names yet, she asked me why and then went off on her own research. I appreciate the help, and she was the one who picked out Pernilla, but she was so fixated on the characters needing names - and then focus shifted to their parentage, but we didn't get as far with that task - that she derailed me whenever I tried to talk more about the actual story plot.

Eventually I gave up. I was determined to get these assignments done before I watched the next set of videos, and it was 1:30am on Sunday morning. I was up anyway with my normal Sunday Insomnia - added to by massive back pain and some nausea - and so I decided it was time to tackle the outline problem.

Before I knew it, it was 7am and I had TEN PAGES of outline; roughly 24 plotted out chapters. The originally perceived climatic battle with Artemis is actually around chapter 14.... so, a little more than half-way. I'm not sure how I feel about that since it now sort of feels like two books merging together as one, but at the same time, the end of the battle with Artemis doesn't seem like a good stopping point.

I dropped the outline in the critique section of Writers’ Huddle last night. We'll see what some of the fellow Huddlers think of the story outline. In the meantime, I'm off to this week's list of assignments.

From the "Writer's Block" class, my assignment is to figure out the best way for me to concentrate and focus on my writing. To do this, I'm supposed to set an alarm for half-hour and just write about my day so far. Of course, being the insanely detail-oriented writer that I am - and because I somehow thought I'd run out of things to talk about before the 30min was up - I wrote down EVERYTHING I could remember. In that 30min writing sprint I only managed to talk about the first four hours of my day! And I did this exercise at 6pm! Whoops. Guess that explains why writing diaries always failed for me. I had four journal attempts over my lifetime; my most recent one being a journal to keep track of my wedding planning. I only ever got a couple months in before it was too cumbersome to keep up with, and I'd drop the project. Shame. So many journals wasted and so much of my life lost to my horrible memory.

BACK ON TOPIC!

In that half-hour writing session I managed a little more than 1400 words and almost two full pages. Honestly, considering that it took so little effort to figure out what to write - same with this blog - I have no clue if those are good stats. I'm thinking "no", but it explains why it takes me HOURS to write this blog.

Also, is it weird that it was hard for me to NOT save all that work? I mean, what would I need it for? It would just take up space on my computer. It's not like I'd really want to bring it up and reread it. Especially since I wasn't even half-way through my day when I stopped. It's just, not saving it feels like a waste of effort. I spent a half-hour typing all of that up, and no one else will ever see it? Yes, it was for practice, and so it was worth something, but it was still almost painful to click "discard" when I closed out the file.

So it will be interesting to have to go through that again later today when I again have to spend a half-hour writing about my day and then not save any of that work. See, the full assignment is to write about our day because it wouldn't really take too much focus to do. That way most of our concentration is on what BREAKS it. At the end of the 30mins, we were supposed to write down what distracted us, so we can attempt to avoid it in the future.

Since I already pretty much know what distracts me - the TV and my friends talking around me because I want to be part of the conversation - it was fairly easy going. Granted, other things that distract me are Facebook when I haven't been on it for hours, and simple research becoming hour-long-involved-read-every-Wiki-page-available research, and going back through my writings to try to find one specific thing, but it results in me rereading the whole thing. None of those distractions were an issue because of the short time span and the lack of researching necessity.

What DID distract me was pain. My job isn't the best environment for my back - although it's improved a little now that I'm in a new department - and I don't have very supportive furniture. Sprinkle in that I was on said furniture pretty much all of Sunday - Yay, Football! - and you can probably see why I now have the spine of an 80-yr-old woman.

So, I'm laid up in bed since the foam mattress topper is pretty much the only form of support we have in the entire apartment. Even so, my lower back would spasm, my hands would lock up, and my legs would stiffen from being extended straight out most of the writing time. Having a mostly quiet apartment also means that the new upstairs neighbors moving in was pretty distracting. I've also been a buffet for bugs this summer no matter what I do. So, random itch attacks threw me every few minutes. The final distraction for me was that I was listening to music off of YouTube and was thrown by a commercial before nearly every video. Kind of jarring, especially when the music itself did such a great job at being background noise. I could attempt to stream radio instead, but it will have the same issue with commercials. I guess I'm either sticking with Noisli or popping on the iPod. My only issue with the iPod is that we're cheap and haven't bought any new music for it in years. So the music isn't what I'm feeling when I write. Oh well, better than commercial interruptions, I guess.

I can't really do to much with the pain and itch thing, but we'll see if I can weed out my other distractions for part two of this assignment tonight.

For me, I think the interesting assignment will be the second one presented for this week. Character building. Fantastic, because I know virtually nothing about my main characters. We're supposed to come up with 20 character traits, and then cross out 17 of them to see if the final three traits are still compelling for the character. Narrowing it down to the Top Three - as it were - will be tricky. We'll see how that goes, and I'll be sure to post the results here next week.

My final assignment for the week is to write five first lines for a book. Now, I guess this could either be interpreted as "Five individual and independent first lines as if writing five different books" or "Five sentences that make up the opening paragraph of a story". I personally read it as the first interpretation - as did the two males whose work is showcased in the workbook as examples - but the two females that were showcased in the workbook interpreted it as the paragraph. I find it interesting that the difference in interpretation is seemingly gender-based. I'm not sure if I'd be the exception, because I've always had more of a masculine mindset. Yay, androgyny!

Anyway, I'll have to check out Patterson's critiques on the opening lines and see if he says one way or the other how the assignment SHOULD be interpreted. I may try the assignment with both interpretations though. Mostly because I feel the men interpreted it correctly - especially because the Patterson examples posted above the assignment are all literally just the opening sentence of his books - however, then the assignment devolves into simply "come up with interesting sentences"; I mean, you don't necessarily need to go anywhere with them, you just need it interesting enough for someone to want more of the story.

For example, Hubby suggested that one of my opening lines should just be: "Boom". That should grab a reader's attention. Was that a large footstep? Was it a minor explosion in chemistry class? Was it a building being demolished? Was it a landmine going off in a war zone? Stupidly simple to come up with interesting sentences, even if they don't need to go anywhere. For instance, who isn't confused and intrigued by this next sentence? "The magical pepperoni mobile that was fueled by mozzarella sticks was surprisingly roomy."

I mean, I do NOT have a story to go with that, but it does tickle some fancies. Is the story in a magical realm? Is this just a random bit of magic in the real world? Is it a dream sequence? Is the narrator on the set of a movie or children's show and the "magical" pepperoni mobile is just a prop?

Anyway, so the assignment seems stupidly easy if you interpret it as simply "five opening sentences independent from each other". So, even though I think it's a misinterpretation of the assignment, I might follow the women's lead and write a five-sentence opening paragraph too; see where that takes me.

Probably to Frustration Town. Starting stories is always so hard. Knowing to how to write that hook. But, if it were easy, Patterson wouldn't have to spend 14minutes on it in one of his video classes.

So, those are my assignments. I'll be sure to share the results next week. Along with the DeviantArt link to X-Future: The Second Generation Begins.

Yup, forgot again. Sort of. I DID manage to remember to post the chapter "Bro-Bonding" on DeviantArt, but it kept so long to format it that I ran out of time to do the same for "You're In Trouble, Son!" I then completely forgot until JUST NOW that I didn't go back and post that second chapter. Derp.

Well, at least I have the one up. So, for anyone who was waiting for the chapter on DeviantArt, here you are: Bro-Bonding

Alright, well, I need to start getting ready for work now. I also might have to rethink my weekly updating day if I'm now on every Wednesday morning. Probably won't switch it back to Sundays since those are still pretty crazy, but I'll keep you posted on that too.

MasterClass Week 2

I did it again. I'm up at the crack of dawn because I again forgot to write this last night; knowing I'll be at work during my noon update.

I'm still getting used to my new work schedule, and said new schedule is really throwing me off my game. I keep losing track of which day of the week it is.

Maybe I need to change my weekly update schedule again. Or maybe I should embrace being up at 5am to write. Although, I'm not going to lie, even if I were still awake at this hour, I'd much rather be snuggling up to my sleeping husband.

But that's neither here nor there.

To start, I completely forgot that I haven't posted my chapters on DeviantArt yet. Whoops. Sorry to anyone who prefers to read them there. I really REALLY need to remember to do that this week so I can post those links next update.

Honestly, I forgot both due to my work schedule throwing me off, and because I've been mostly focused on my MasterClass lessons.

I faithfully followed the writing schedule that I set up for the first assignment. Every day between 5 and 6pm. Granted, what I was doing wasn't prose-writing, which is what I think James Patterson meant for us to do - even if it was a series of writing exercises to keep our skills sharp - but it was still an hour a day dedicated to working on my assignments for these classes. I skipped yesterday because I ended up being at work off-and-on for nearly 12hrs of the day, but aside from that, I'm still working on my writing daily between 5 and 6pm.

For the second assignment, my Plunny farm ended up including 9 ideas and is now 9pgs long. Most of the ideas - as I stated last week - are missing that key drive. That catalyst that sends the protagonist on a specific story. They're great ideas for something like webcomics and TV shows, though. They have that potential for a lot of stories. That might be the issue. Not that I can't think of a catalyst for a story, but because I can see the potential of twenty stories and don't want to lock it down to just one. That, and each story potential would be a short-story in and of itself; a novela if that. So the overall book would be an anthology of these small "daily" plots that these characters encounter. Sort of like publishing a fictional diary.

Anyway, I'm wandering off topic.

I did manage to come up with a plot at the 11th hour. My only hesitation is that it is back to my fanfiction roots. I don't know what it is about me that I can't seem to come up with the starting story spark on my own. I always seem to have to piggyback off of someone, be it fanfiction writing, "stealing" Ronoxym's story, or having Hubby give me the story inspiration. That's actually how I survived my college classes. I had a production class that needed me to write scripts for mini-movies, and an actual script-writing class at the same time, and Hubby suggesting story ideas was the only way I could write enough different scripts for everything.

Granted, it's usually a small thing that I'm piggybacking off of - fanfiction it's the characters or world, but not the actual plot; Ron's story it was my character telling me the story was being told wrong; Hubby's suggestions are usually "What if" scenarios - and then the inspiration strikes, and I'm off and running on my own. Such is the case with my most recent inspiration.

Still, it bugs me that I can't seem to get that spark without an outside source....

I'm wandering again, sorry, it's now 6am, but I'm still half-asleep I think.

So, the plot idea I came up with at the last minute. It's actually something that's been bouncing around in the back of my head for over a year now. Back then, when I posted on Twitter that I had updated my blog, I would then spend close to an hour backtracking and reading all of the Tweets that Rick Riordan posted over the past week. Although I'm still curious as to what he's up to with his writing, I just don't have the energy to dedicate that much time to Twitter lurking any longer.

Anyway, while I don't recall the actual wording of it any longer - and there's really no way tech-illiterate me could probably find the conversation any more - the basic spark of inspiration for me happened more-or-less as follows:

• One of Riordan's followers asked a What If about a Huntress of Artemis - teenage girls that swear to remain maidens forever, and in exchange are granted eternal youth and the Greek goddess Artemis' protection. What if one of them fell in love with a boy?
• Riordan's answer was more-or-less "Artemis would probably kill them both; the girl for breaking her oath and the boy for 'seducing' her." Granted, those weren't his exact words do to Twitter's character restrictions, but based on the overall conversation, that was the gist.
• I sat there reading his response and thought "What a neat story concept! Someone should write that!"

And so write it I am. A year later. Well, probably close to 18months later; I'm not sure how long the MasterClass is going to be...

Now, I failed miserably at this when I was posting my progress over on Writers’ Huddle, but let's see if I do any better at writing a CONCISE plotline that is ONLY 3-5 sentences long, and please ignore the name placeholders of Huntress and Male until I figure out their actual names:

1. Huntress has faithfully followed Artemis - and kept her oath - for over 300 years, but that all changes when she meets Male - a demigod that lives/hunts in the same area Artemis is currently residing - and the two fall in love.
2. When they can't resist their feelings, Huntress and Male flee from an infuriated Artemis, and search for Aphrodite in hopes that she'll protect their love.
3. They are overcome by Artemis and her followers, but Huntress manages to best the goddess in battle; sparing Male's life, but losing the grace and protection of Artemis.
4. Huntress - now without the magic that gave her youth - is rapidly aging back to normal; which is almost 350yrs old.
5. Male and Huntress make it to Mt. Olympus - currently stationed celestially above NYC - but Huntress dies of old age in Male's arms while they pleaded for the gods' help; Aphrodite still thinks she can be saved, though. 

There! Did it! Vague, but only 5 sentences! For the extended 11-sentence description of the story that I posted on Writers' Huddle, please see below:

Huntress is one of the followers of the Greek goddess Artemis; a follower is a teenage girl who retains eternal youth as long as she keeps her oath of forsaking men in order to remain a maiden for all time, otherwise she will be put to death. After over 300 years of loyal service, Huntress has the ill-fate of falling in love with Male; a modern-day demigod who happens to live/hunt in the same area Artemis and her huntresses are staying. After failed attempts to part ways and ignore their love, Huntress and Male flee to NYC where the Greek Gods have moved the celestial residence of Mt. Olympus; in hopes of getting Aphrodite's patronage and assistance in breaking Huntress' oath. Huntress and Male are hunted down by Artemis - who feels betrayed even though Huntress hasn't technically broken her oath yet - and the two must battle their way across the United States. Somewhere in the south east corner of the US, Huntress and Male come in contact with Aphrodite, who informs them that she does favor them, but only because she has a soft spot for doomed star-crossed lovers; she won't help them. Soon after, the two are overrun by Artemis and her huntresses. Huntress manages to best Artemis in battle after making a deal that Male would remain safe if Huntress wins; Artemis announces that Male will be unharmed, but she also will no longer gift Huntress the same protection as her faithful followers. Huntress' oath is revoked, but so is her eternal youth; she is aging at an alarming rate, so she and Male must now race to Mt Olympus in hopes of stopping the aging before she dies and turns to dust due to her birth being about 340 years prior. Aphrodite - curious about how far the two's tale can go - petitions for them to have an audience with Zeus, who holds up Artemis' punishment. Huntress dies in Male's arms, but pleas from Aphrodite and Hera allows Male to return Huntress alive and to her teenage self if he can prove his love. He does in a simple act (TBD), and their love is forever protected by Aphrodite.

I have a LOT of work ahead of me in building this story; mainly because I have no clue about ANY of the locations I want, or why it takes so long for them to make their way cross-country. Riordan makes things "simple" by having his characters - Percy Jackson, et al, as well as the Kane Siblings from his other series - unable to use planes or cars for whatever reason; usually age and lack of adult supervision. So they must race against time while struggling to work cross-country on magical teleportation or flying crafts, hitchhiking, ill-fated bus rides, or simply walking. I'll have to see what I can do.

But that's the point of this week's assignments! The suggested three classes for this week were "Research" and "Outlines" - which was a 2-part series since Patterson believes this is by far the most important step to writing a novel.

He stated that he typically spends about 4-months working on perfecting the outline, and the outline goes through about six drafts in that time. That way, if something isn't working, it's a lot easier to go back and rework an outline than it is to write out a 400pg story and realize huge chunks of it aren't working as you go through the second draft of it. According to Patterson, if the outline is done right, authors will be able to write the actual novels faster, and have a lot less revision when they edit the second draft; they may even end up going through fewer drafts of the manuscript before it's ready for print.

Obviously, if your characters decide mid-write that they want to take the story someplace else, you pause, go back to the outline, and rework that before you follow your characters.

Anyway, I think Patterson's views on how important the outline is - much like a blueprint when building a house - can be best summed up in this quote from the first Outlines lesson:

“It's not mechanical, because that's creative. That is a book. It is a book called 'an outline'. And if that book is great- you outta be able to sell your outline to a publisher if it's done the way it should be done.”

I'd like to think I have a fairly good handle on writing detailed outlines; as showcased in this old blog post explaining how I write each chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be. Now to see if I can put it in action for this new story.

If I'm even using this fanfiction idea. I did have SOME original ideas in my Plunny Farm, but I just couldn't think of that once-and-done story. When I shared some of them over at Writers' Huddle, one of the Huddlers threw out some plot-starter suggestions for each of them. Really kind of helpful. Also, I still have to chat with Spink - either later today or on my day off tomorrow - to really solidify which concept I'm running with.

So, while I'm pretty certain that this fanfiction idea is going to be what I use as my "project" during this MasterClass, it IS still open for debate. I'll keep you posted on that, as well as my further progress, next week.

Story Revivals and Master Classes

I oopsied, and I'm paying for it right now.

Once again, I lost track of what day of the week it was. So, while I was home alone for five hours while Hubby was at work last night, I neglected to write this post. Then, at about 10:30 last night, I remembered that today is Wednesday, and that I'm working 8-3:30. Whoops.

So, I forced myself up at 5am so I can make sure that you folks have a noon update. But my eyes are still half-closed, I'm yawning, and I don't have the time to edit this before heading in to work - yes, it takes my that long to write these things - so please forgive any typos and bad grammar.


Let's start off with the important part, the conclusion of my August Goal Challenge on Struggling Writers Society, and thus the end of my summer writing challenges. It was tough to try to squeak everything in, but Monday was my day off this week. Given that it was also the last day of August, I locked myself away in my Writing Nest I created last week and typed all morning.

Set this up in my library when I typed last week's post.

When all was said and done, I actually ended up with TWO chapters. The chapter I was originally intending was a little with Chayse and Lia at first, and then about 80% Chayse and Nix, concluding with Chayse getting in trouble with his mom as well as Nix and Annika heading out for a date.

While I'm not a fan of the majority of the chapter following Chayse's POV, only to hop over to 3rd Omniscient for the last 500-so words while sticking with Nix and Annika. However, them running off for a date seemed like a natural end, and a nice segue into their date chapter. At the same time, Chayse getting in trouble with his mom took on a bit of a life of its own as I embellished the solo role play Hubby had between Chayse and Kitty. Over 2000 words later, I decided it was probably best to break it off into its own chapter.

Plus, even though there's some POV-Hopping when Chayse leaves and I stay with Nix and Annika at the end of the intended chapter, for some reason it fits the flow to stay with them. Cutting back to Chayse for his solo thing felt disconnected even though the majority of the chapter was his POV anyway.

So, there are two back-to-back Chayse POV chapters now. Oh well.

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker
by Birdman Inc

In the end, I finished off August with something shy of 9,000 words written. Not nearly as exciting as Cyhyr or Mouse hitting 30,000 words, but given that I haven't written actual prose since about April, I think it's a nice wing-stretcher.

Another snaffu that I hit is that FanFiction hasn't been allowing me to properly log in the past two days. I managed to post my chapters on August 31st perfectly fine, but now I can't get back in. I keep getting some error message about no servers available. I can still read stories - including my own - perfectly fine, I just can't get into my FF dashboard to upload, edit, or post anything that I write. Weird.

Anyway, the reason I realized that was because at about 10pm - apparently my realization hour - on Monday I remembered that I had posted the new X-Future: The Second Generation Begins chapters up on FanFiction, but I had neglected to post them to DeviantArt as well. I spent roughly the next forty-five minutes editing the chapter. See, I still haven't learned how to upload prose as if it were a picture file on to DeviantArt. A lot of authors have done this so that you scroll through a PDF or something. Very professional because it's like an ebook.

Like I said, I haven't figured that out yet. Mostly because I'm just computer literate enough to survive in this digital world and know a few tricks to impress my mother with, but I'm computer illiterate in most things beyond "basic". So, I haven't figured out how to save my Word Doc as a PDF that I can then upload to DA.

Because of this, I have to post things the hard way, by entering text into a box and then adding all of the formatting things - such as line breaks - via HTML. One of the most annoying formatting edits I have to do is redoing all the italics that I put into my story. They don't transfer over at all with a simple copy-and-paste. So I have to then re-read the whole story and try to find all the parts I had italicized.

I tried something new this past time. I scanned my story, stopped just before an italic, copied, pasted, put in the HTML, wrote the italicized word or sentence, and then copied the next section of text leading into another italic.

Since the first chapter had a LOT of Chayse thinking, it also had a lot of italics. It kept me roughly 45 minutes to get it all formatted.

And then I derped.

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker

by Birdman Inc

I brought up the preview to make sure the edits worked the way I wanted them to, but when I went to close the preview, I hit the wrong box and closed out the entire document. It doesn't auto-save. It doesn't ask if you're sure you want to close. It doesn't warn you that you'll lose everything you didn't save. It just complies, and closes the window.

Nearly an hour, gone. Never to return, and with nothing to show.

I was kinda ticked at that point and gave up for the night.

Problem is, now I can't get back into FF so I can copy my chapters, since FF won't let you copy a story you're reading. A great way to prevent plagiarism, but an annoying feature right now. So, when I'm done with work today, I have to again unbury my external hard drive - I have one of the older "My Book" models that's about a pound or so, and kind of clunky; not an issue when it's forever still next to a desktop, but annoying when attached to a moving laptop - so I can access the original files that I had used to post to FF in the first place. At least I know I have access to them. I can even attempt to save as a PDF one more time before going through the stupid HTML edits again.

In the meantime, you can check out the latest chapters - as well as the rest of the story - on FanFiction.net:
 > Bro-Bonding
 > You're in Trouble, Son!

Yes, I'm well aware that I still suck at coming up with titles....

I'm also aware that my story's voice, style, and detail have all evolved since Chapter 1. It's a fanfiction I started over 2 years ago; I'm not worried about it. Just enjoy the evolution, I guess.


*cracks knuckles*
Alright, and now for some super exciting news. The news I meant to tell you guys last week, but COMPLETELY forgot until about 10minutes before I had to publish the update.

So, my awesome mother did a thing.

There is this site called MasterClass. It has all of these mini-courses about tons of different professions, and they're taught by professionals in said career. Right now, there are three available classes: Acting taught by Dustin Hoffman, Tennis by Serena Williams, and the one my mother found for me. Writing taught by James Patterson. In case my mother wasn't quite amazing enough for finding this for me, she also paid the sign-up fee as an early-anniversary/Super-Early Christmas gift for me.

So, the Monday before last week's blog, I excitedly watched the first four videos - as directed by the "class syllabus". I was just too excited to wait any longer to open my gift, so to speak.

These classes are awesome! Patterson is a really down-to-earth guy who is playful, funny, personable, a joy to listen to, and you can tell he really cares. Yes, I know there are skeptics out there that might think "Yeah, he's paid to care," but he also does donate millions of dollars towards literacy programs, such as funding libraries and book donations to schools and the like. I legitimately think this man cares about both literacy and the up-coming aspiring writers.

Plus, the guy is inspiring, and has so many great quotes!

Here's a few I made sure to copy, and then I posted them on my FB:

• "It took me into my forties before people really believed in the kind of fiction I was writing."
  This is actually really comforting for someone in her early 30s who hasn't even finished a manuscript yet.
• "When I got out of school, I started working at an ad agency... but I've been clean for twenty years now..."
  This one just made me chuckle. I absolutely loved my time at the production house right out of college. In fact, aside from maybe my brief stint at a movie theater, I think it's my favorite job I've ever had. I guess it just depends on the ad agency you fall into, and what sort of advertising you do...
• "If you had to tell me your story in ten minutes; fifteen minutes. Figure out a way to tell me that story in fifteen minutes, and that will be the core of your story.... There's the story. You should be able to tell that story, I would think, in ten or fifteen minutes, or less."
  I'm fairly certain - based on context surrounding this quote - that he meant verbally telling someone. Either way, it's a good rule of thumb; especially for someone long-winded like me.

I also want to state that I am dumbfounded by a factoid that Patterson threw out about himself. Apparently, when he was in college, he was reading 10-12 novels a week. A WEEK! NOVELS! I can't even get myself to read 10-12 novels a YEAR and he was doing so A WEEK! Geez! How the heck!? Speed-reader, much?

Anyway, back on topic...

The video classes are only about 10minutes long, and so it's real easy to tear through them. As I mentioned, there's a sort of "class schedule" that MasterClass posts. A suggested schedule on how many videos - and which ones - you should watch per week.

Yes, per WEEK. I'm assuming most who take the classes put 10minutes of their busy schedules aside three or four times a week in order to watch a class. Then, on their "off" days, they spend the 10minutes or so they would be watching a class, and use it for the "homework" provided with each lesson.

I was too eager and watched all four suggested for Week 1 in one sitting. Whoops.

On top of that, I've been so preoccupied with finishing up the August Goal writing challenge that I didn't bother with any of the assignments.

So, now that it's September, and the challenge is over, I'm bothering now.

Assignment #1: Create a writing schedule and fill it out on the week-long calendar provided.

Well, I intended on doing these classes Monday nights, which would mean the week would be Monday through Sunday. Given that it's Wednesday - which would be when NORMAL people would watch the second video - and I only came up with my schedule last night, I feel like I failed a bit. However, I did CREATE the schedule. It didn't say anything about actually following through with it.... #Loopholes.

Anyway, I'm writing now, first thing in the morning, to make up for not writing at all yesterday, and I wrote like the Dickens on Monday to finish up my challenge. So, maybe consider this first assignment only semi-failed?

For the rest of the week, at least - and hopefully spilled over into next week, I'll have to check my work schedule - in the hour between 5pm and 6pm I shall be writing every day, again, ignoring yesterday and Monday.

We'll see how a consistent writing schedule works for me. It hasn't in the past, and that has been one of my biggest pitfalls in the world of writing. I really REALLY need to learn how to discipline myself enough to get a steady writing schedule, even if it isn't a daily routine.

Alright. So, Assignment #1 is done; sort of.

Now on to Assignment #2: Create 3 raw ideas - either new, or ones I've been playing around with - and write them down somewhere.

In other words, I have to start physically creating a Plot Bunny Farm. The ideas have to be physically written down. Either by hand on some hardcopy - index cards, notebook, looseleaf in a folder, etc  - or digitally - word doc, folder names for future documents, spreadsheet, MS Paint Thought Maps, etc.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be trickier than I gave myself credit for. I have a few Works-In-Progress that I could use to build the Plot Bunny Farm, but it feels a little like cheating, I think. So, I figured I'd attempt some new ideas. It's hard to transition away from ideas you've been brewing for years in order to "magically" come up with some new ones for an assignment.

Worst part is I discovered I'm pretty good at coming up with a neat story environment/world, and I'm also pretty good at coming up with interesting characters. What I'm surprisingly bad at is coming up with actual PLOTS. Beginning, middle, and end. Done. *dusts off hands*

I have Amara. She's a D&D character that evolved into a High Fantasy story character that evolved into one of the many stories I have based in the world of Gyateara.

I have Amara's backstory, physical description, personality, and life goal all mapped out. What I DON'T have, is a specific story arc for her. "Amara does whatever she can to try to find a way to banish the human part of her soul so she can become fully Elvish." Great life goal to give her drive throughout a story, but that in and of itself isn't a plot.

Jump over to my Vampire: The Masquerade character that I attempted writing a story for this past NaNo. Same deal as with Amara: backstory, description, personality, life goal, but no plot. That's the main reason I abandoned the story. "Lottie is on three simultaneous quests: hunt down the vampire that killed her sire, as well as as many of his clansmen as she can; find out what happened to her husband when he went MIA in WWII; find a way to retain her humanity." Three great starts to books. I can write one based on any one of those goals, let alone all three at the same time. However, there's no PLOT there. What is the fighting force against her?

Then you have the idea I was going to attempt for Script Frenzy. A story similar to Pixar's "Inside Out", but instead of the "little people living in your head" being personified emotions, it was an author's characters literally living in her brain. Fun world concept, but there's no plot there.

Then you have X-Future - and it's reboot I've been working on - which is simply "Teenagers with powers struggle in a world both trying to co-exist with them as well as destroy them. Chaos ensues."

I can go on. This past week I thought of about four more characters like Amara and Lottie, and three more world concepts like the "Inside Out" one or X-Future.

You know what that probably means I'm good at? Serials.

I can probably write comics or TV series. I have characters with vaguely specific goals in life that they're working toward, and each strip/episode is a different little plot that either fights against that goal, or helps lead them to it. I have a fun world that readers/viewers might enjoy exploring, and they can with each new strip/episode which is another "slice of life" in that world.

However, my inability to come up with solid PLOTS does not bode well for me as a novelist....

So, I'm still working on that Plot Bunny assignment.

The final assignment I have for the next time I watch more classes is this.

Assignment #3: Write a plotline out - preferably based on one of the three Plot Bunnies from Assignment #2 - in 3-5 concise sentences. Once the plot is fleshed out, send it to a good, but brutally honest friend. If they want to know more about the story, then you have something you should commit to. If not? Then go back to the drawing board and see if you can tickle their fancy next time.

My NY Bestie Spink volunteered to be my "Brutally Honest Friend" for this assignment. Now to figure out what to tell her....

Well, that's it on my assignment list and my feelings on my writing MasterClass for the week. Plus, I need to wake up Hubby so we can get ready for work....

Keep an eye out for my list of Plot Bunnies, as well as my 3-5sentence plotline next week.